From your napkin to a masterpiece
1. It starts with empathy.
2. Create and test your hypothesis.
3. Focus your idea.
4. Be remarkable.
We all know ideas are plentiful, but how do you go from good to great ones? Jim Collins may have some thoughts about good to great, and I have ones with respect to ideas. Having spent years/decades working with ideas and teams of people, there are four steps I practice to help make ideas take flight. If you want to read a superb book on making your ideas memorable, I highly recommend the book, “Made to Stick"…..” by brother authors Chip and Dan Heath. The following four steps are a long read that include my insights and a story snapshot from my practical experience. These insights are a blend of design thinking, practical experience and thoughts from wise authors, like the Heath brothers.
Here are the steps I practice:
1. Start with empathy.
2. Create and test your hypothesis.
3. Focus your idea.
4. Be remarkable.
Begin with the most important one, “start with empathy.” Why? Because grounding yourself in the heart of the problem and understanding it from the user viewpoint is invaluable for the creation of possible solutions. “It starts with empathy” is Four Hawk’s first corporate value and should be your first step as well.
1. Start with empathy. The first step in wondering what to do with your idea is to start with empathy. If an idea pops up into your head, it’s just an idea. They come and go and we rarely take action on them. Combining your idea with empathy is the secret ingredient if you are willing to do the work. Empathy happens when you study stakeholders directly and indirectly involved with a problem. And don’t be afraid to talk to people about your ideas. Remember, it’s just an idea at this point and if you want to make it a good idea, you need input. Lots of input. And if you want to make it a great idea, your original thinking will pivot and iterate into the best solution. After actively listening to dozens (or preferably hundreds) of folks about your idea, your insights build and what the problem is you’re solving may actually shift. Your new understanding helps you build a better (and the correct) solution. Whether you hold a design charrette to gain community insights for designing a new public space or sit down for coffee with community members to identify problems, empathy is the needed ingredient. Once you identify and involve people in the problem your idea addresses, the more likely it is they’ll see themselves in the solution. So why is this step often overlooked or skipped? Simply because it takes time and effort. And people often think their idea is THE solution without including empathy. Sadly, it happens all the time. Once you have gained empathy, now it’s time to formulate your hypothesis.
Story Snapshot: The 1991 Batavia design charrette to improve Batavia volunteerism drew 100 residents together to re-imagine the future. One problem the charrette identified was the need to transform blighted riverfront property. A tangential problem was the lack of community gathering space. These two problems came together to create a unique solution: the formation of the Batavia Riverwalk project. The Fox River linear park in downtown Batavia was designed and built over eight years using volunteer fundraising and labor, transforming underutilized riverfront property into a signature park. The Batavia Riverwalk won the State of Illinois’ Hometown Award for Volunteerism for the project and today stands as Batavia’s community gather space and source of pride.
Batavia Riverwalk - Batavia, IL
2. Create and test your hypothesis. Start by writing down your hypothesis, (based in empathy gained in Step 1). Then test your hypothesis. Your research needs to involve potential users or customers. Ask them questions about how they currently deal with the problem and what they’d like to see in a solution. Then ask more and more stakeholders of different demographics to make sure the evolving solution you are building from your idea is the one that will be used and adopted. When stakeholders are asked and included, a groundswell effect and adoption of the solution is much more likely. And, besides, people like to be asked and included, don’t you? If you just show up and dish out your solution to their problem without doing this step, your idea is likely not going to be well received or survive to the next step.
Story Snapshot: Mentoring teens is both a joy and a test of patience for me. Working with entrepreneurship students, it always amazes me how many do not want to do the research to a) identify the competition; b) locate, then talk to people involved with the problem; and c) get reactions to their prototype solution. Belief that their idea, their solution to the problem is the first one ever conceived is most times the norm. Many novice entrepreneurs just want to dish out their solution and skip this step. Skipping this step is a common flaw, which funny enough, many novice adult entrepreneurs and company intrapreneurs do as well. Millions of dollars and untold hours are wasted every year with new “widgets” and programs introduced with “how do you like it?” All too often customers respond (or think to themselves), “You should have asked me for input during the design process.”
3. Focus your idea. We all know KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) and the reality is that simplicity is indeed harder than it sounds. Distilling your idea down to the bare essence is brutally hard because it means having to focus on your core offering. Being concrete is key to your solution. You can’t be everything to everybody, so figure out which lane is yours and how to reach your customer. If ideas are too esoteric, they lend themselves to creative interpretation. If your solution is vague, it will be hard for customers to rally around (or for). So, if you get this far, research confirms your hypothesis, and you’re clear on your solution, it’s time for your idea to take flight.
Story Snapshot: A young entrepreneur coming out of college had an idea to start a company with his friends. The friends, and now business partners went to school together and all had the same skills. Sounds like a great idea? They developed a website, printed up business cards and waited for customers. Not much business came their way. Why? Because they didn’t start from a place of empathy, didn’t research their competition, didn’t really know their target market, and didn’t form a team with diverse skills needed in business (who was doing sales?). They had a great product and a creative team, but were not able to stay in business long because they just executed their solution without a balanced team, didn’t test their hypothesis and skipped most of their homework.
4. Make it remarkable. Thinking you can simply hang out your shingle or launch a website and expect orders or customers to pour in is not realistic. The last step of launching your idea is to make it memorable and as Chip and Dan Heath recommend: “make it unexpected.” How are you standing out from or above the crowd? What can you offer that gets you noticed and also may help establish yourself as an expert? Marketing channels are overloaded these days. Your challenge is to figure out a way to be unique.
Story Snapshot: One of my favorite gorilla marketing tactics was executed while serving as a downtown manager promoting the Halloween-themed festival called BatFest. A couple of weeks prior to BatFest, I started spray-chalking bats (using a stencil) throughout our downtown on windows and sidewalks. As the event drew closer, more bats appeared and more buzz was created throughout the town. Residents wondered who was creating the art for what purpose. The idea to promote the festival met the event marketing goals of being low cost, memorable and creating buzz throughout town.
What idea is ruminating inside your head? Get it out by starting with empathy, create and test your hypothesis, focus your solution and be remarkable. Ideas are common. And because those of us willing to do the work of making good ideas great are few, your chances are exponentially better when you follow these four steps. In challenging times, sometimes the best ideas emerge out of disruption, fear and necessity. Will you act on those or let them pass? Maybe the worst of times is the best time to roll up your sleeves and get started.
